Off the Hook
by Kiera Kingsley
Summary: [Phone Booth] Kate's POV; sequel to "On the Line", set one month later.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer:  
  
The Caller belongs to Kiefer Sutherland (mmmmm...), Joel Schumacher (hurrah and quite possibly hurray as well), and 20th Century Fox Productions (ya boo... just kidding!). Anybody and anything else that you don't recognize is probably mine. No dollars, loonies, euros, pounds, francs, yen, rubles, dinars, pesos, or any other forms of currency have changed hands here.  
  
Author's notes:  
  
If you haven't read 'On the Line' yet, here's all you really need to know for this story (that won't be explained further on): the Caller (I've decided to name him David) from 'Phone Booth' is going out with a lovely girl named Kate, an artist who used to live at a homeless shelter. This story is told from her point of view, a month after the end of 'On the Line'.  
  
Dedicated, as before, with much love to Becky.  
  
---  
  
It's been snowing hard the last few days, and they haven't cleared the streets yet, so I'm sitting at the table and sketching on a piece of paper. I just came back from a tattoo artist in the area who pays good money for my designs, with the agreement that she keeps my name attached to the artwork.  
  
Jenna looks like a dragonfly; her bones jut sharply out of her skin and her tattered sports clothes hang limply off her too-skinny frame. She slathers on layers of neon-hued makeup over her pale, translucent skin, that glows underneath the neon lights of the parlour, and wears sparkly fake eyelashes around her lurid, murky green eyes. She's high-strung and panicky, and constantly puffing on a cigarette with trembling fingers, but she's nice to me and she always gets the cash on time.  
  
I smooth out a line with a stroke of my pencil, rounding the rough edge. A little touch over here, a darker shadow there, and... done.  
  
My fingertips are smudged gray-black with the pencil lead. Around this time of year I'd normally be soaking my hands in hot water, trying to burst swollen blisters; now my fingers are smooth and unmarked, thanks to my new pair of warm woolen gloves.  
  
I smile as I wander over to the sink to wash my hands off. The gloves were a gift from David, who insisted on buying them for me. He surprised me with them a couple of weeks ago, slipping them onto my hands with both his arms wrapped around my waist.  
  
I find it hard to reconcile everything I know about David. I've seen the rifle, I stumbled upon it when I was searching through the closet. It was stashed away in a corner, covered with debris--a cunning, cruel weapon, slender and shining, made of sharp steel and cold iron. Beside it lay a cardboard box full of cartridges and another stocked with bullets.  
  
And yet his hands, which know how to aim with such deadly precision, are always gentle when they touch me, and he looks at me with worship in his bright eyes. His kisses taste like melting honey; his skin is warm and rough to the touch when we lie in bed together, and his heartbeat is strong and steady under my cheek.  
  
The water gurgles in the sink, gushing from the tap and bubbling over my hands. I scrub away at the stains, rubbing the black smears off my fingertips until they're a raw red. Outside the kitchen, the phone rings.  
  
Hastily wiping my wet hands on my jeans, I go over to answer it. "Hello?"  
  
There's a short, silent pause before an unknown man's voice cuts coldly across the line. "Who is this?"  
  
I instantly bristle at the tone, something skittering and shivering down my spine. "Who are you?" I demand.  
  
Click, and dial tone. I replace the receiver and wander back to the table, well aware that my eyes are dark with worry. It could be just a wrong number or a prank call, but I remember the rifle in the closet. If somebody's angry with David...  
  
I'm still staring into space, resting my chin against the bridge of my folded hands, when a low patter of footsteps sounds behind me. "Something wrong, sweetheart?" David says lightly, stroking back my long hair with his cool fingers.  
  
"A man called earlier," I answer, tilting my head up to meet his gaze. "He sounded angry, and he hung up before I could get his name."  
  
David considers this in silence, his gray eyes grave, before shrugging. "It was probably a wrong number. Don't worry about it." He bends down to kiss the nape of my neck, trailing his lips up to my ear and purring, "You know, it is getting rather late..."  
  
"Mmm." I arch my neck at his teasing caress, still preoccupied. David sees this and straightens up, his hands tensing slightly.  
  
"Kate, it's all right," he says soothingly. "You're safe here, remember? I won't let anything happen to you."  
  
"I'm not worried about me, I'm worried about you," I retort.  
  
David smiles--his quirky, crooked grin that pokes slyly at the corners of his mouth. "You, of all people, should know by now that I am more than capable of taking care of myself." I have to smile at that, and he leans down to kiss me. "Now stop worrying," he murmurs, his mouth a breath away from mine, "and come to bed."  
  
Later on, the anxiety drifts across my mind again; this time I close my eyes, bury my face in the crook of David's neck with a soft sigh, and lose myself in sleep.  
  
--- 


	2. Chapter 2

Thank you, Jade! :-) 333333333333333333 times a million to Kit.  
  
---  
  
A balding, heavy man in a business suit jostles me as I sling my backpack over my shoulder, nearly shoving me out into the busy street. He gives me a nasty glare as he descends into the subway station nearby, adjusting his pudgy, sweaty grip on his suitcase handle.  
  
With a slight shrug I continue on towards 53rd and 8th. The air is cold and clean today, clouds covering the pale sun in a gray haze. Smooth white snowdrifts sit by the side of the road, while people squelch through trails of muddy slush on the sidewalk.  
  
A grizzled, toothless old man sits in the shelter of a bustling coffee shop, his frayed jeans wearing at the seams and his ragged brown jacket huddled around his thin shoulders. I enter the coffee shop, elbow through the crowd, and lean over the counter to buy a coffee and blueberry muffin before retreating to the street again.  
  
The man wakes up with a startled grunt; his thin, trembling lips stretch tightly across his teeth in a wavering smile as I set down the coffee cup and brown paper bag beside him. "Thank you, Kate," he rasps out in his hoarse, grating voice, "I haven't seen you at the shelter for such a long while... where have you been?"  
  
"I found a new place to stay," I explain, stuffing my hands in my pockets and surfacing with a five-dollar bill. "I still help out at the shelter, though... Here, take it."  
  
"You still draw?" He puffs out a huffing laugh, his chest heaving and wheezing with the effort. I used to see him at the shelter all the time; he once owned a dog, a lean bony greyhound with a tail like a whip, before it died of old age last fall. "Tell me, where can I see this masterpiece?"  
  
"Head down the street to the nearest intersection, hang a right, and head straight for a block," I answer, "if all this slush and mud hasn't wrecked it yet."  
  
We chat for a while longer before I head onwards, hopping backwards as I wave to him before passing by a girl gabbling on her cell phone. The streets get even more crowded, cars jamming the roads with honks and beeps as sirens wail piercingly in the distance.  
  
I stop at a cluttered music store, dimly lit inside and full of peeling paint and shredded posters. A tall, skinny guy with prickly tufts of hair is sorting through CDs, a woven bracelet threaded around his thin wrist.  
  
"Raoul, how's business?" I greet him.  
  
"Going good," he mumbles down at the CDs, fishing out one and flipping it over, inspecting the cover. "I got a couple of jobs, I'm making some money... things are looking up." He holds out the box. "Want to buy something?"  
  
"Nah, I'm headed home." I hoist the backpack higher on my shoulders, looking him closely in the eye. "Are you all right?"  
  
He doesn't meet my gaze, turning away instead. I catch a flash of fear and guilt in his eyes before he bends his head lower, looking through the CD cases again, and bite my lip. Raoul showed up at the shelter about a year ago, high on heroin and holding a rusty switchblade in one hand. Since then he's tried to stay off the drugs, but it's hard to keep clean. Heroin is his only escape from the streets, from the cold and hunger and filth and despair, and he keeps going back, no matter how hard he tries or how hopeful he stays.  
  
"Listen, I'm still working at the shelter," I tell him now. "Maybe we can talk sometime."  
  
Raoul gives me a half-hearted smile, his hands stilling for an instant. "Yeah, sometime soon. See you around." He gathers up the box and heads into the store, disappearing into the crowded darkness.  
  
I mull over Raoul as I turn the corner and head towards the apartment building on 53rd and 8th. One of the flashily dressed hookers milling about the street smirks at me, flipping back her hair; I ignore her and go inside, where it's cool and spacious and empty. The sounds of my footsteps clatter hollowly in the stairwell as I climb up to the first floor and emerge into the hallway.  
  
The apartment is quiet when I enter; I hear the sound of water running in the kitchen. "Kate?" David's muffled voice calls as I approach.  
  
I duck into the living room, flinging my shoes to one side, and see David sitting on the couch, taping a white gauze bandage to his cheek with a grimace of pain. "What happened to you?" I rush over to his side.  
  
"Someone with extremely bad aim shot at me as I was coming home." He lifts the cloth to reveal a bleeding gash gaping across his face. "It only grazed, it's nothing serious."  
  
I know it grazed, I've been treating bullet wounds for a good two or three years. I also know that if the bullet had gone a millimeter to the right, David's jaw would have been cracked. "Who was it?" I demand shakily, taking the tape roll from his hands and fixing up the crooked bandage.  
  
He closes his eyes, thinking. "Looked like a homeless man. Tall, thin, dark eyes, black hair that stuck out like crazy--"  
  
"A thread bracelet around his right arm?" I interrupt, something cold trickling down my spine.  
  
David gives me a startled look. "You know him?"  
  
A queasy, nauseous feeling settles in my stomach, bile rising in my throat. "His name's Raoul, he used to be at the shelter where I work. He works a couple of blocks over and--and he's addicted to heroin, but I didn't think-- it can't be, he wouldn't kill anybody--and why would he kill you?"  
  
"I expect a lot of people would like me dead," David replies grimly. "And Raoul sounds like the perfect man for the job--homeless, a heroin addict-- who'd believe a word in his defense?"  
  
"You're just being paranoid." I finish dressing the wound, smoothing the white gauze over his stained cheek.  
  
David smiles with an effort. "I hope so." He touches the bandage lightly and gives me a melting puppy-dog look. "Won't you kiss it better?"  
  
I laugh, wind my fingers through his hair, kissing him gently just above the bandage, and lean my forehead against his, knowing with absolute certainty that I'll be losing sleep tonight.  
  
--- 


End file.
